It's late. It's me. And I'm tired. I have another site that generally serves to host all my off-road racing photos. It used to turn a profit on them and retail e-commerce sales. That is why I was long deserting the idea of hosting a photo gallery here. Why do so when the photos were contributing to my bottom line and double up on the work for nothing.

Well, that is until I let the site lag, then shut it down after costing me dedicated hosting fees when the traffic had dropped down below 20,000 unique visitors per month and wasn't producing any sales due to the face that I pulled the plug on the operation, more specifically the company managing the sales for me.

Sure, I was once in the retail 4X4 parts business. I ain't no more. Wanna hop aboard and sale automotive aftermarket and powersports parts on some sites? Hit me up. I have traffic and can easily get more. Straight commission deal we're talking.

Anyhow, that's not the aim of this post. While I was perusing a few sites this evening, after putting in nine hours on three clients sites I'm running, posting to Facebook, Twitter and Twitpic on behalf of those sites, I landed upon a photographer site, which hosted its photos on a Coppermine Photo Gallery software install. I once used Coppermine Photo Gallery on a site. It worked well and rewarded me with search engine optimization results that were worthy of leaving it be. And I liked how you can easily move a Coppermine Photo Gallery install between servers and domains, when cloning it. But my review of the photo gallery script is that it was far more difficult to administer than my beloved Gallery2. And my hopes of keeping the site relatively simple by running all my basic photo gallery requirements through JoomlaWorks K2 just wasn't cutting it.

Sure, Gallery 2 is a pain to migrate and clone between servers, directories and domains, but it is an SEO magnet and has an arsenal of modules, extending its already extensive capabilities. Add to that it is easy to administer and it's a deal. I'd prefer not going down the argument that modifying the themes or its code is a pain, but since I have fully tested the simplicity of Gallery3 and its improved performance and its ease of Gallery2 to Gallery3 migration, I'd gladly take a gamble with Gallery2 with hopes to upgrade to Gallery3 in the coming months.

This is why, after looking at a photographers websites this evening, I figured I'd jump in and tool around with one of the best hosted e-commerce photo gallery software applications on the planet. And it's free. Can't beat it. So, for the next few minutes, I'm working away at it and then heading to bed.

My thoughts are, since I'm integrating it into this Joomla content management system's framework, I may very well do the same for several client sites that need a targeted boost in website traffic. We'll be using Jfusion to do the deed of integration. The Jfusion bridge component is the go-to bridge component for most any standalone script that you're looking to perform a frameless integration into Joomla.

Anyhow, this may not be a well written blog, but it's an update. Now, it's off to complete the task of installing Gallery2. We'll likely hold off actual integration until after our return from capturing Mastercraft Seats SCORE San Felipe 250 photos down south in Baja. Which reminds me, I've also got to charge up and pack camera equipment prior to falling into a deep six hour slumber.

Oh. Did I mention I have a new found love for TweetDeck and CoTweet. Yep. I have since backed off Seesmic Desktop and used the combo exclusively for Facebook, Bit.ly, Twitter and TwitPic social media management.

I rarely donate any time to my personal websites. I am not one who has been too zealous on self promotion. I don't promote many of the projects I have worked on or am actively working on and don't Tweet too many of my own blog posts. I'm trying to break the mold but still haven't gone full bore on the endeavor. This could change. One sign is that after the late evening's work, which consisted of strategizing a marketing effort and weighing its web presence against available search engine trends, I scrolled over the various Google Analytics accounts and landed onto the DIRT FORGE.com search engine analytics report.

I rarely donate any time to my personal websites. I am not one who has been too zealous on self promotion. I don't promote many of the projects I have worked on or am actively working on and don't Tweet too many of my own blog posts. I'm trying to break the mold but still haven't gone full bore on the endeavor. This could change. One sign is that after the late evening's work, which consisted of strategizing a marketing effort and weighing its web presence against available search engine trends, I scrolled over the various Google Analytics accounts and landed onto the DIRT FORGE.com search engine analytics report.

Several days ago, I had an relatively heafty influx traffic. I was digging for what inspired this spike of just over 300 unique visitors for the day. Therein I found evidence of what hopes to become the next best Twitter tool of all Twitter applications.

Anyhow, within the DIRT FORGE SCREEN search engine results page was a link to a Twitter post captured on an AppSpot.com project (http://7920074.appspot.com/), as in Google App Engine, an development and deployment platform for web applications. Decoding the resulting 404 error page, which was once the DIRT FORGE Twitter page on the new Twitter app (http://www.followfeeder.com/pg/blog/openid_20094?offset=115), I landed upon Follow Feeder (www.FollowFeeder.com). The slogan of Follow Feeders is "Put Your Twitter Account On Auto Pilot." Below are some details of the project slated to be released in March 2010.

FOLLOWFEEDER.COM FEATURES

Auto Follow / Unfollow

Shorten URLs

Add RSS Feeds

Schedule Tweets

Add Followers

And in the event you're interested in how to promote your Twitter account and increase Twitter followers with relatively no web presence and no tangible product, check to see how @FollowFeeder has managed to make it happen, primarily by posting valuable Tweets to their target market.

It's free. It's clean. It's quick. And while it may be one of the cleanest free Joomla templates I have used in recent years, the intuitive user interface design of the Joomla Praise Joomla AdminPraise Lite Template does take some getting used to, as the key elements of the administrator interface are laid out completely different than the default Joomla admin template. Amid the biggest drawbacks of the fashionably clean design is realized when it the templates default form, when it comes to editing content items, but amid it's greatest features is that its admin interface is highly-configurable according to your specific work flow characteristics.

On my primary computer, I am using a relatively large 1920 X 1200 computer monitor. So, perhaps the sidebar component list is not as much an issue than it would be for those who are using smaller monitors, but nevertheless, I am used to having my WYSIWYG editor stretched out wide and ready for fast content editing and blog posting. Therefore, I despised the component sidebar list and went straight to work eliminating it via the admin configuration interface, which is perhaps the greatest asset to the Joomla AdminPraise Lite template.

JOOMLA PRAISE ADMIN PRAISE LITE CONFIGURATION

The feature rich yet relatively slower drop down menu that stretches across the top of the default Joomla Khepri admin template created by Rocket Theme founder Andy Miller (@Rhuk), cannot compete with the speed of the Joomla Praise admin template nor the high-configurable options but can compete with its native feel, which most Joomla users are accustomed to and overwhelms it is quick accessibility to virtually ever facet of Joomla that the Joomla default admin template offers.

Sure, through the Joomla Praise template, there are configuration options that can overcome accessibility to certain aspects of Joomla, but with a fast computer and fast internet connection, the load time of the bulky default Joomla template is of little concern for its fast access to Joomla's extensive admin features.

JOOMLA PRAISE ADMIN TEMPLATE

JOOMLA PRAISE ADMIN TEMPLATE WITH JOOMLAWORKS K2 & WYSIWYG EDITOR

If you're still stuck in the Joomla 1.0 feature set and relying upon multiple components to handle many of your site's primary duties, then perhaps the component sidebar list is for you.

Diligently engaged in the world of Joomla 1.5.K2, it is rare that I switch between components, as there is only one component I use with any frequency, and it isn't the Joomla content component. Its the all-in-one CCK-style Joomla component known as JoomlaWorks K2. It does it all, working as a real blog that challenges the default Wordpress blogging capabilities. It's in Joomla. It's highly extensible. It works as a directory. It works as a document download repository. It works as a photo gallery. It works as a comment component. It works as a product catalog. It works as a video component. It works. It works. It works.

JOOMLA KHEPRI DEFAULT ADMIN TEMPLATE

JOOMLA KHEPRI DEFAULT ADMIN TEMPLATE IN JOOMLA K2

The Joomla Praise AdminPraise Lite template is certainly worthy of a test install. Spend a few hours or days tinkering with it, testing configuration options, enjoying its benefits and becoming comfortable with it. It will wear on you. As to whether you'll keep it as the default admin template, is entirely up to your specific work flow characteristics. As for me, I've switched back to the default Joomla Khepri admin template, as I find it difficult to ween myself from its functionality.

There is more than enough reason to make the switch. The features of AdminPraise Lite are luring. For this reason, I'll leave it installed but rest upon that which I am accustomed to until a later date.

]]>FidelRGonzales@gmail.com (FidelGonzales)BLOGTue, 16 Feb 2010 18:00:18 +0000From Standing Alone Upon Way Easy Wordpress To Extreme Integration With A Less Mature JoomlaWorks K2http://mediaarmory.com/blog/item/28-from-standing-alone-upon-way-easy-wordpress-to-extreme-integration-joomlaworks-k2
http://mediaarmory.com/blog/item/28-from-standing-alone-upon-way-easy-wordpress-to-extreme-integration-joomlaworks-k2Recently the DIRT FORGE Blog performed a migration from a Wordpress blog on a sub-domain to a JoomlaWorks K2 blog wrapped within the Joomla CMS framework installed upon the root domain. While Wordpress remains one of easiest all-around web development platforms, especially for websites that require the capabilities of a blog or content management system (CMS), it has its limitations, particularly for projects that require or may require a relatively high level of integration with more mission specific software applications, such as e-commerce, photo gallery, file download repository and forum software. This is where the Joomla CMS framework excels.

Recently the DIRT FORGE Blog performed a migration from a Wordpress blog on a sub-domain to a JoomlaWorks K2 blog wrapped within the Joomla CMS framework installed upon the root domain. While Wordpress remains one of easiest all-around web development platforms, especially for websites that require the capabilities of a blog or content management system (CMS), it has its limitations, particularly for projects that require or may require a relatively high level of integration with more mission specific software applications, such as e-commerce, photo gallery, file download repository and forum software. This is where the Joomla CMS framework excels.

Not only does Joomla possess formidable native applications to perform the duties of e-commerce and message boards, but Joomla also boasts the ability to bridge with a myriad of standalone software applications. And because these applications are standalone, they are often backed by robust development communities that continually strive to enrich the code base with incredible features and functions that consistently build a more impressive application. What's best about this, when it comes to Joomla, is that your Joomla-based site inevitably inherits these capabilities, But moreover, the layer of integration extends far beyond the basic user level integration. Through the use of Joomla's module system, you can layer and even weave virtually any element of either a native or bridged application any number of other applications on the Joomla framework. Not only can you publish these modular elements anywhere upon the template but also upon specific pages. This is the power of Joomla.

So, while I hated to leave Wordpress behind for its extreme ease of publishing, the advent of JoomlaWorks K2 led me to seriously reconsider Joomla. After just more than a week and a few blog posts on this site (as well as posts on a few other sites), I am satisfied with the move from Wordpress to K2 but have nevertheless learned a few things that I would like to see changed in future releases. K2 is nowhere near as easy as Wordpress when it comes to web publishing, but K2 is by far the best content management software and blogging software Joomla has ever seen, which is why several of the sites that used the default Joomla content component were immediately switched to K2 with the releases of the last version. But for sites run a separate Wordpress blog or run default Joomla component and require one or more of the features listed below, the switch was not so fast or has yet to begin.

JOOMLAWORKS K2 FEATURE REQUESTS

Ajax Content Editor Auto-Save - Implement an Ajax auto-save within the content editor similar to that found in Wordpress. This way, when writing or editing a blog post, your work is consistently saved in the background without having to refresh the page. And when there is a database hiccup or your computer loses its internet connection, you are alerted to the error. This way, even when either connection is lost, you are not losing your content to a resulting blank page that emerges after you have pressed save. Adding versioning to K2, just as Wordpress has, would be yet another great step, but auto save would be a great start for any amateur or professional writer or website editor.

Ability To Use WYSIWYG Editor Within Extra Fields - This is the only feature request that I have not come up with on my own and posted either on Twitter or the K2 Community Forum. I have yet to attempt any form of compression on the topic of K2 extra fields. But after a bit of reading, specifically on the topic linked here, my interest on the subject has spiked considerably. Essentially, these guys are looking to harness the power of K2's extra fields by integrating the ability to edit these fields with a WYSIWYG editor. After giving it some though, this would be huge and must agree with their desires to enable such functionality.

Content Tagging Editor - Where Wordpress creates keyword tags on the fly when a keyword tag has not been created and likewise applies it to the content when it has, K2 falls short on the intuitive nature of Wordpress editor tagging, since if the tag has already been created, you have to search down what quickly becomes a very long list of keyword phrases that are not alphabetically ordered in an effort to find the keyword tag that already exists. As your site content grows, this quickly becomes more of a headache. Being just a few weeks into my experiment with the latest K2 version, it has already become a web editor's headache.

Extend K2 Tools Module To Include Other Assets - There have been several topic started, including one or two that I have started upon the K2 Community, that request the capability to publish file attachments from the module and either make them available through direct download or as a link to the original page. I invision such a capability as well as the capability to call other content elements, such as content images, content photo galleries, content videos and possibly even elements of the fields tab. This would work to extend the K2 immensely and really solidify the concept of using K2 as not just a blog but also simultaneously as a photo gallery, a video gallery and a document repository, which is easily conceivable through the use of category-specific K2 templates.

Publish More Than One Video / Image - In the same way that multiple attachments can be published, it would be great to be able to publish more than one video and image and have it associated with the content item.

Skip Number Of Items Within Content Module Parameters - I was a bit disappointed to find that the K2 Content Module did not have the capability to skip any number of content items in the same manner that the classic MiniFrontpage Module does for default Joomla content. One purpose of this capability would be to have multiple modules published upon the same page but have different emphasis placed upon the more recent content items than the older items. For example, you might have intro text, a larger headline and larger photo for the most recent items. The second module might have slightly older content with smaller headlines, smaller photos and a smaller amount of intro text. And the third module would have even older content but with no intro text, smaller headlines and no photos. And because these separated into modules, these modules can be published elsewhere upon the page, in between ads or within tabs.

Filter Items By Tag Within Content Module - Yet another parameter within the K2 Content Module that would improve basic functionality would be the ability to filter the content published within the module by tags.

I remember the days. I worked straight HTML. I wrote like a mad man. Lived the ultimate off-road lifestyle and documented the insanity by means of a camera, a keyboard and often times a satellite internet connection. Those were the days of Off-Road.com. There were editorial days that existed long before the ORC era of my life, but they do not size up to the workload, responsibility nor adventure. Traffic at ORC was ultimately bolstered by informative and often humor-laced excitement. And during that era of my life, it was far more difficult to web publish that excitement as it is today. Straight HTML via notepad and then manually publishing links via FTP file upload for an array of primary directory pages was an extremely tedious task. Homesite soon eased the HTML editing woes but also inserted erroneous code. Fortunately, Macromedia Dreamweaver segued onto the scene has long proven to be a standard asset in my code-slinging repertoire.

I remember the days. I worked straight HTML. I wrote like a mad man. Lived the ultimate off-road lifestyle and documented the insanity by means of a camera, a keyboard and often times a satellite internet connection. Those were the days of Off-Road.com. There were editorial days that existed long before the ORC era of my life, but they do not size up to the workload, responsibility nor adventure.

Traffic at ORC was ultimately bolstered by informative and often humor-laced excitement. And during that era of my life, it was far more difficult to web publish that excitement as it is today. Straight HTML via notepad and then manually publishing links via FTP file upload for an array of primary directory pages was an extremely tedious task. Homesite soon eased the HTML editing woes but also inserted erroneous code. Fortunately, Macromedia Dreamweaver segued onto the scene has long proven to be a standard asset in my code-slinging repertoire.

Years later, the web is now dynamic and virtually automagic. And I’m off in the land of Joomla content management systems. For a while, this was a great boost to performance and satisfied the objective of purely editorial efforts. But as the days drive on, I have realized my prose has wandered into the irritation of Joomla’s inhibiting content management system. Like I said in a recent post, Joomla is more of an extensible web software framework than a CMS, since it is quite complicated to management and even publish content using Joomla.

Having migrated to Wordpress, writing is once again addictive. There are a multitude of other commercial and open source blogging applications as well as hosted applications I have used in the past. But with Wordpress, I am again on the verge of navigating into my element. And I’d hate to divert my efforts from the affliction.

But, as content is the driving force behind one of my personally-owned Joomla websites, I need to figure out an integrated option, since Virtuemart e-commerce is a major money maker for the retail sales segment of the site, and I cannot do away with the cash machine. There are other operational money makers integrated into the site as well, specifically the photo gallery, which conducts sales and reels in a considerable amount of targeted traffic. The photo gallery, which is an integrated Gallery 2 and soon to be Gallery 3 install, produces healthy e-commerce photography sales on certain occasions, despite the army of flatbiller photographers who are now photographing average off-road race and posting them online these days.

The point is, I have an arsenal of tech stories and industry insights for this site that is geared toward off-road, outdoor, 4X4, automotive and powersports markets. I also love to rant and rave about applicable lifestyle topics that inevitably includes politics. Some are simply average tech but nonetheless enhanced by the fun factor. Others are liable to knock the kneecaps off of a few industry nitwits who have overstepped their efforts of inept corruption and all-around stupidity.

Anyhow, the site content has become relatively dormant or at best inconsistent. One of the reasons for this is the migration from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5, which created a whole host of issues, including SEO and integration issues. But amid the biggest reasons for content abandonment is the content management and content delivery system itself. Joomla seems to have evolved into a worse solution than in the recent Joomla 1.5 offering, which is referenced in blog posts here as well as forum posts I have made elsewhere upon the web.

Because of the integrated e-commerce and photo-commerce requirements, a non-bridge or integrated Wordpress content management system is out of the question. Wordpress would definately lessen the load on management and improve production but would require extensive effort elsewhere to maintain the current traffic trends as relative to sales. With that said, I’m really beginning to think Joomlaworks K2 CCK is the most viable means of achieving my objective. It required only five minutes to download, install and import all content and categories. In depth configuration is yet another story but projected to require a week’s work to achieve near perfection, where an army of dynamic applications are integrated to include news and blog search RSS feeds, real-time search application widgets and an integrated display of applicable product and product categories, which are categorized in an intuitive manner that mirrors the e-commerce shopping cart category structure.

Well, I’ve got to get on with the configuration of a pending project’s price file import. Until then, careful consideration is underway, and the world of social media still remains, own or be owned.

I generated my first Twitter account back in 2007. Shortly thereafter, I performed a few contextual posts to Twitter (Tweets) and audio posts to Utterz (now called Utterli). This included posts generated from remote location at local races such as Mojave Desert Racing (MDR) and Mojave Offroad Racing Enthusiasts (MORE) but also SCORE Primm 300 and SCORE Baja 1000 races. During that time, all formidable websites offering coverage for these races, specifically the Baja 1000, were weak efforts. The only exception would be the Race-Dezert.com Weatherman Race Radio Live Audio Feed. But even that is rather limited in its redeeming value, which is an entirely different conversation. It wasn’t until mid-2008 that I began consistently using a Twitter account. My spike in Twitter activity was do in part to public relations guru Jim Graham (@RonJon), who is also a self-proclaimed pretty boy Class 11 VW racer, whose race addiction is delivered via @DesertDingo. There were other things that truly interested about Twitter, but it’s just as easy to blame it on Graham. Should you follow him, you might find his ever-changing array of avatars entertaining and even perplexing. While my fervor is for off-road racing, my primary interest in engaging Twitter was from the e-commerce perspective, since I have realized that e-commerce is indeed the driving force for financial sustenance behind the off-road industry.

I generated my first Twitter account back in 2007. Shortly thereafter, I performed a few contextual posts to Twitter (Tweets) and audio posts to Utterz (now called Utterli). This included posts generated from remote location at local races such as Mojave Desert Racing (MDR) and Mojave Offroad Racing Enthusiasts (MORE) but also SCORE Primm 300 and SCORE Baja 1000 races. During that time, all formidable websites offering coverage for these races, specifically the Baja 1000, were weak efforts. The only exception would be the Race-Dezert.com Weatherman Race Radio Live Audio Feed. But even that is rather limited in its redeeming value, which is an entirely different conversation.

It wasn’t until mid-2008 that I began consistently using a Twitter account. My spike in Twitter activity was do in part to public relations guru Jim Graham (@RonJon), who is also a self-proclaimed pretty boy Class 11 VW racer, whose race addiction is delivered via @DesertDingo. There were other things that truly interested about Twitter, but it’s just as easy to blame it on Graham. Should you follow him, you might find his ever-changing array of avatars entertaining and even perplexing.

While my fervor is for off-road racing, my primary interest in engaging Twitter was from the e-commerce perspective, since I have realized that e-commerce is indeed the driving force for financial sustenance behind the off-road industry.

Anyhow, during initial Twitter tests, I was heavily engaged in the use of Google News Search and other associated platforms such as Google Blog Search, using such resources to deliver targeted content to key pages of e-commerce shopping carts. Not only did this offer a greater resource to shoppers, enabling greater return visits on the month, but it also complimented the performance of search engine-derived traffic.

In mid-2008, I began consistently using one of my Twitter accounts. I made a more formidable showing of virtually-live coverage at the SCORE Primm race as well as the SCORE Baja 1000, using Twitter & Twitpic for text and photo updates and Utterli for audio updates. While I did not market this, the interest garnered a considerably amount of residual traffic to several websites. The inbound links had a lot to do with this.

Perhaps the most engaging aspect of the one-man and two-man web effort was the mashup of live search widgets. Just as I had done with Google News and Google Blog searches, I had also done with Twitter live search, enabling key pages of these sites to feature live updates from Twitter without having to refresh the web page. This was particularly cutting edge when partnered with PROCOMM Race RadiosChuck Dempsey to use the International Racing Consultants live satellite vehicle tracking flash application upon my experiemental editorial e-commerce off-road website. The website was only live for no more than a month and at race’s end had garnered over 50,000 unique visitors within a 30-day period. Because of the addition of a photo gallery that contained off-road race photos, forums and, amid other assets, a an e-commerce shopping cart loaded with applicable off-road vehicle parts, the page became quite lively and was an excellent resource for fans and web editors. It harvested a bundle of resources, including the live vehicle tracking application, Twitter live search application, Utterli real-time audio application, Google News keyword search RSS application and a few other interesting widgets.

The IRC live vehicle tracking application has once again taking a new twist and includes new licensing agreements. Likewise, the conglomerate of business partners, Dempsey included, have other endeavors that are more lucrative. Therefore, the effort is more of an afterthought but does still maintain meaning in the grand scheme of things. We’ll be discussing the grander scheme of these things later this evening over some @Starbucks.

Anyhow, what ignited a renewed interest in this live search technology was when I stumbled upon the Zappos GoPro Twitter Search Page through a Google search I executed in hopes of finding a link I posted upon Twitter sometime last week. The link happened to be on the DIRT FORGE Forum but was also posted upon Twitter, which is how Zappos got a hold of it. And coincidentally, who was once a retail store manager and clothing and accessories buyer prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom over six years ago, is interviewing with Zappos sometime tomorrow for a position within a new atheletic deparment. But let’s move onward.

You see, Zappos using Twitter search to provide additional information on manufacturers they carry product for. How I found the Zappos web page proves how valuable an asset this approach is to targeted search engine optimization. It also proves its redeeming value to customers and the industry at large. Brand marketing is not always overt in nature but can become quite covert.

For anyone interested in an in depth insight into where you need to be with your e-commerce shopping cart effort, simply gander at the Zappos page referenced above. To better integrate such an effort into your search engine optimized e-commerce game plan may prove increasingly critical in this destitute economy. This is even more true as we embrace a more savvy customer base and highly extensible web applications that are highly social in nature. From product reviews, to customer relations, to news aggregator, to blog search to the search engine magnet and beyond, you’ve got to give these trends some serious thought before the short attention span of your customer is lost upon the web.

Right now, with the release of JoomlaWorks K2 Joomla Component, I am giving serious thought to deploying the concepts alluded to here and earn a few bucks to serve my addiction to dirt.